Theatre Royal Plymouth is currently playing host to a murderous feline. Herald What's On couldn't resist getting up close and personal with this perplexing puss.

Flashing yellow cat eyes stare out from a fuzzy muss of feathers and leather, reclining on a table, as we arrive at The Drum stage.

This precisely thrown together animal with a piercing stare is one Count Frederick Sebastian - the cat star of the new theatre production Clockwork Canaries.

He is lovingly brought to life under the watchful eye of Richard Booth and even has his own Twitter account (@TRPCount_FS).

Charlie Cameron is the lucky woman who gets to act along side the Count as Tatiana.

Count Frederick Sebastian rehearses (Image: John Allen)

"Tatiana and her father have quite an isolated existence so when she finds Count Frederick Sebastian it rocks her world a bit," Charlie says.

"It's almost a coming-of-age story and it gives her the strength to question her father. Count Frederick is a metaphor for her voice and her courage and giving her some perspective on her life and not accepting everything her father gives her."

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Count Frederick plays a pivotal role in this production. This darkly comic and blood-thirsty gothic fairy tale comes from the author of the UK Theatre Award-winning Mister Holgado and the Tales of Schwartzgarten series of books.

When death-fixated Tatiana Dressler rescues a cat from the River Schwartz, she little suspects how her quiet life with her inventor father is about to change.

The Count is soon slaughtering a neighbour’s canaries at an alarming rate, her father is inventing a contraption to make the feline more human, and it seems the Dressler house may harbour some sinister secrets.

"I haven't acted with a puppet before and the night of our first show I had to find Rich and give him a massive hug because my whole story is our story and I feel a close bond with this cat," Charlie says.

"I don't look at Richard once in this show so I did feel I needed to touch base with him because it really was just me and the cat on stage.

Count Frederick Sebastian

"Even when the Count was just a prototype with bits of polystyrene he had so much personality and Rich has given him that. I've been overwhelmed by how amazing he is, he's been a joy to work with."

For Richard, who's worked on such productions as War Horse, it was all about getting in the head space of the Count.

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Unlike puppet shows of old where Richard might have expected to crouch behind a table or don a black body stocking, Clockwork Canaries adopts a more modern style of puppetry inspired by Japanese Bunraku. He stands totally visible to the audience and and yet melts magically into the background.

"A lot of stage puppetry is moving into that now," he says.

"The philosophy of stage puppetry in the UK is the idea of not apologising for the puppet operator being there.

"There's a basis in Bunraku, which is traditionally three people operating a single puppet, and it's all about focus. I'll be talking to you, but the cat will be focused elsewhere. All the attention is on him."

Richard Booth and Count Frederick Sebastian

Count Frederick works under tension, with a strip of elastic running down his back.

"Every puppet is different," he says.

"There's basic principles, but you spend most of your rehearsal process learning what it's capable of and then you get on the set and open the show and that changes everything. It's a constant learning curve. It's part of the joy of it.